Monday, October 24, 2011

The Indignity

"Why won't you lick my fingers Daddy?"

There are some things you don't want to ever hear from your own child. Some of those things are when they complain because you won't lick or sniff their fingers. Or make their brother do the same thing. One place you definitely do not want to hear the above question is in the hallway of you child's elementary school whilst walking between a group of thirty people. But that's what just happened. This is because the snack given to my daughter's class today were apples. Yep. Oh - and bowl fulls of unmade Jello powder to dip them in. You know - healthy stuff. I was actually invited into the room to see how happy all the kids were. All the little buggers were covered in slightly-wet fluorescent Jello powder sporting a retarded smile or suffering hypoglycemic shock. It was like stumbling across fifteen kids who;d been shown how people used to huff snuff from a box, and were impersonating it with sugar dust. Both I and my son were offered some and declined.

Thankfully before this atrocity I was so proud of my daughter this morning. That's because she has started singing my old favorite song again. That son is, of course, B, L, Double-O, D. Our new singalong version goes like this -:

Sadly my daughter has also started blurting out, "The indignity...." because that';s what Gordon sometimes says on Thomas The Tank Engine. She tries to do the accent too and isn't that bad at it. My son, not to be outdone in the impressing-Dad stakes has learned how to put shoes on (but not get them off causing visceral rage) and put train tracks together. Good man. Unlike his sister he gets the right shoe on the right foot too. Which I discovered by finding him charging off out side this morning to jump in leaves - but with his shoes on. No pants - just shoes and underpants. He's going to give Ghost Blower a bad name at this rate. I told my kids that the rule is that if the trees are naked that they have to wear more clothes to compensate. My daughter angrily argued that the tree is actually wearing pants (bark) so that's why her brother didn't. Apparently she's protective about her brother's pantless needs.

Right - I'm off to make sure we have all our black-out supplies ready. The skies have turned black and it is absolutely hammering it down. And all in a matter of seconds so I wouldn't be surprised if we get a power cut. I reminded my daughter of her attempt some time ago to stop weather using a photo of Meryl Streep drinking milk and her yelling, "cabbage!!" out the window. She thinks it might work this time. But only if I go up on the roof and try. And maybe bring her.